Gaslighting can happen in unexpected places including your workplace. Workplace gaslighting involves psychological tactics that cause someone to doubt their memory, perception, or reality.
This can have serious impacts on the victim's mental health, leading to self-doubt, anxiety, and even depression. It often occurs in professional settings where the perpetrator seeks to undermine the target's confidence and competence for personal gain or control, leaving the victim feeling confused, uncertain, and powerless.
Workplace gaslighters, often in leadership roles, may try to maintain power dynamics. For example, a manager consistently denies promising an employee a promotion or raise, even though there are clear records or witnesses to the contrary. This can make the employee doubt their memory or abilities at work.
A frequent situation occurs when an employee reports harassment or discrimination, but their concerns are dismissed as being "too sensitive" or "imaginary." This can make them doubt their experiences and hesitate to report issues in the future.
A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that workplace gaslighting involves two types of harmful behaviors that affect employee mental health and job satisfaction: "minimization" and "difficulty."
Here are the two signs of workplace gaslighting according to the 2023 study:
1. Your Concerns Are Constantly Dismissed
Researchers describe minimization as "an inclination to downplay phenomena, adopt a skeptical attitude toward the seriousness of a situation, and take a casual approach." Minimization undermines subordinates' perspectives, fears, and realities by the manager.
Instances of minimization by a manager may include changing topics to blame you, downplaying your concerns, making promises that don't match their actions, twisting or distorting things you've said, and making demeaning comments about you, pretending there's nothing to be upset about.
Victims of minimization may start to doubt their perceptions and feelings, wondering if they are overreacting or being too sensitive. Being frequently told that their concerns don't matter can gradually damage their confidence and self-esteem. This can lead to feelings of isolation and a lack of support, as their experiences are repeatedly dismissed.
2. You Feel Bad About Yourself
Researchers describe the second workplace gaslighting behavior, difficulty, as "a construct that elicits feelings of pain, suffering, and distress." It includes a range of negative emotions that a gaslighter directs onto their target, influencing how they start to feel about themselves.
The study highlights that examples of difficulty can include times when a manager has exercised unnecessary control over you, made you self-critical, made you completely dependent on them and incapable of making your own decisions, made you feel emotionally drained, or has been very kind to you and then suddenly became hostile.
Difficulty can lead employees to doubt their abilities, self-worth, and judgment, fostering a pervasive sense of insecurity. The significant emotional distress they experience can leave them feeling anxious and overwhelmed, creating mental conflict as they struggle to reconcile their own experiences and perceptions with the gaslighter's manipulative tactics and lack of accountability.
Is Your Workplace Psychologically Safe?
Workplace gaslighting indicates that your work environment is not psychologically safe. A psychologically safe workplace is one where employees feel comfortable being themselves, expressing their opinions, making mistakes, and asking for help without fear of negative consequences or judgment from their peers or superiors.
Unlike in cases of minimization, in safe workplaces, leaders actively listen to their employees and provide constructive and respectful feedback, focusing on growth and improvement rather than blame or criticism. Employees also feel confident that their concerns will be heard and given due importance.
It's crucial to differentiate between psychologically safe and unsafe work situations and recognize the signs of gaslighting. Seek support from loved ones, trusted colleagues, HR, and mental health professionals if you are struggling and remember, you deserve to feel safe, valued, and respected at work.